» E. F. Horton.
ST. MARK 301
They asked Akiba, Eabbi wise and good,
"Which is the weightiest text in all the law?" He answered slowly and with heart-felt voice, "Thou shalt thy neighbour love e'en as thyself." " There is a weightier still," Ben Asai said, "'This is the book that tells of Adam's race.' For that declares the brotherhood of man."
It is admitted that neither of these two great commandments is in the strict sense original, because they are both to be foimd in the Old Testament (Deut. vi. 4 ; Lev. xix. 18). The originality of Jesus consisted in lifting them out of obscurity, and giving them their position of prominence in the Christian ethical system. How much this was required, especially by the second commandment, we at once see if we take the trouble of turning to the place where it occurs in the Book of Leviticus. There it stands side by side with a commandment not to make a garment mixed of woollen and linen cloth, and not to sow a field with divers kinds of seed. It is quite clear that in a position like that this commandment was virtually lost, and the original reader of the Law would have no con- ception of its importance. But Jesus lifted it out of its obscurity, and, raising it aloft, converted it into a vision of mankind as He conceived it to be, a family of brothers, a company of lovers.
Another service which Jesus did to this commandment, besides lifting it up out of obscurity into prominence, was the way in which He joined it with the first commandment. These two commandments both stand in the Old Testament, but they do not stand together. They are widely apart, with no apparent connection between them. But Jesus brought them together thus intimately so that they are closely related.
•jl I remember a very able engineer telling me that a number of engineering inventions were made in connection with the building of one of our Glasgow bridges, by one of our most prominent engineers of genius, and he said to me that when other engineers came to see them they were perfectly mad with them- selves that they had not made the discoveries, because they seemed to be 80 simple.^
» J. stalker.
302 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
I.
The First Commandment.
"The first is, Hear, O Israel ; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength."
From the time of Moses to the present hour, morning by morning and evening by evening, these words have been on the lips of every devout Jew. For three thousand five hundred years, in times of prosperity and in times of tribulation, has the testimony been heard without ceasing. Of no other religious watchword could the same thing be said. The strains sound through the ages like a Divinely authenticated and undying protest, not only against all systems of idolatry, but against legalism and letter-worship. Eeligion is love, the love of God and the love of our fellow-man, the imion of a grateful reverence with a fine human ethic. With this utterance ever murmuring in Jewish homes through the long centuries, like a cadence of the unwearying ocean, no wonder Jesus should have said, " Think not that I am come to destroy the law. I came not to destroy but to fulfil."
i. First.
1. This is the first commandment for these reasons — (1) It is the first commandment on account of its antiquity ; for this is older than even the ten commandments of the written law. Before God said " Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal," this law was one of the commands of His universe. This commandment was binding upon the angels when man was not created. It was not necessary for God to say to the angels, " Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not steal," for such things to them were very probably impossible ; but He did doubtless say to them " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart " ; and when first Gabriel sprang out of his native nothingness at the fiat of God, this command was binding on him. It was binding upon Adam in the garden ; even before the creation of Eve, his wife, God had commanded this; before there was a necessity for any other command this
ST. MARK 303
was written upon the very tablets of his heart — "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God."
(2) It is the first commandment for dignity. This com- mandment, which deals with God the Almighty, must ever take precedence of every other. Other commandments deal with man and man, but this with man and his Creator. Other command- ments of a ceremonial kind, when disobeyed, may involve but slight consequences upon the person who may happen to offend ; but this disobeyed provokes the wrath of God and brings His anger at once upon the sinner's head.
(3) It is the first commandment for justice. If men cannot see the justice of that law which says, " love thy neighbour," if there be some difficulty in understanding how I can be bound to love the man that hurts and injures me, there can be no difficulty here " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God " comes to us with so much Divine authority, and is so ratified by the dictates of nature and our own conscience, that this commandment must take the first place for the justice of its demand.